Average height for European men rose 11cm in 110 years: study

The average height of European men rose by 11 centimetres between 1870 and 1980, an unprecedented spurt linked mainly to better health, a new study says.

The estimate, published on Monday in the Oxford Economic Papers, is garnered from military, medical and other records from 15 countries for young adult males aged around 21.

Countries in northern Europe saw the biggest growth in height between the two world wars.

But those in southern Europe, a definition that includes France, had their big increase after World War II.

Timothy Hatton, an economist at the Australian National University in Canberra and the University of Essex in England, describes the change as "explosive".

"The evidence suggests that the most important ... source of increasing height was the improving disease environment," he wrote.

"Rising income and education and falling family size had more modest effects."

In 1980, Dutch men were the tallest of the 15 countries studied, reaching about 183cm, while the shortest were Portuguese, about 173cm.

The study only looked at men, as there is little accurate data for the height of women for this period.

Other research into height gains has found that Europe far outpaced Africa, Latin America and South Asia during this time, an era characterised by industrialisation, urbanisation, the advent of antibiotics and expanded health systems.